Peggy Lee - Biography - IMDb Peggy Lee Biography Showing all 42 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (2) | Spouse (4) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (27) | Personal Quotes (4) Overview (4) 5' 6" (1.68 m) Mini Bio (2) Peggy Lee was Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, on May 26, 1920. At age four her mother died. Peggy's father, a railroad station agent, remarried but later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her. Peggy later memorialized this in the calypso number "One Beating a Day", one of 22 songs she co-wrote for the autobiographical musical "Peg", in which she made her Broadway debut in 1983 at the age of 62. As a youngster Peggy worked as a milkmaid, later turning to singing for money in her teens. While singing on a local radio station in Fargo, the program director there suggested she change her name to Peggy Lee.

Peggy's big break came when Benny Goodman hired her to sing with his band after hearing her perform. Peggy shot to stardom when she and Goodman cut the hit record "Why Don't You Do Right?" and went out on her own to record such classics as "Fever", "Lover", "Golden Earrings", "Big Spender" and "Is That All There Is?" - the latter winning her a Grammy Award in 1969. Peggy's vocal style provided a distinctive imprint to countless swing tunes, ballads and big band numbers. She was considered the type of performer equally capable of interpreting a song as uniquely as Billie Holiday , Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith . Her 1989 album, "Peggy Sings the Blues", was a Grammy Award nominee. Peggy was a prolific songwriter and arranger and her 1990 "The Peggy Lee Songbook" contained four songs she wrote with guitarist John Chiodini . Peggy also wrote for jazz greats Duke Ellington , who called her "The Queen", and Johnny Mercer , and composer Quincy Jones .

Also in 1990 Peggy was awarded the coveted Pied Piper Award presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). She made her mark in Hollywood as an actress, winning an Academy Award nomination for her role as the hard-drinking singer in the jazz saga, Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) and composed songs for the 1955 Walt Disney animated classic Lady and the Tramp (1955). The animated film featured a character named Peg, a broken-down old showgirl of a dog, whose provocative walk was based on the stage-prowl of Peggy Lee. Later she sued Disney and won a landmark legal judgment for a portion of the profits from the videocassette sale of the film. Peggy's private life was racked by physical ailments, a near-fatal fall in 1976, diabetes and a stroke in 1998. She was married four times, all ending in divorce. She and first husband, guitarist Dave Barbour , had a daughter, Nicki, her only child.

Peggy and Dave were on the verge of a reconciliation in 1965, but he died of a heart attack before the couple got back together. Peggy has left a vast legend of music that is constantly finding new generations of fans. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Kelly E.F. Wiebe (senhue@mts.net Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, sultry song stylist Peggy Lee was the product of a troubled, abusive childhood, who used singing as an escape. She found work on a radio station as a teenager in Fargo and quickly changed her name to Peggy Lee. An early move to Hollywood at age 17 proved disappointing, returning north to her radio job within a short time. A Chicago nightclub appearance led to her replacing vocalist Helen Forrest with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in 1941, where she soon earned star status for such songs as "Blues in the Night", "The Way You Look Tonight", and, her signature song, "Why Don't You Do Right?". She struck out on her own two years later and earned more hit records with "It's a Good Day" and "Manana", which she wrote.

An elegant, intimate performer with a minimalist style, her recording and supper club fame eventually led to movie offers, notably opposite Danny Thomas in a remake of The Jazz Singer (1952). Her peak, however, came with her vibrant, Oscar-nominated performance as a singer who battles the bottle in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). She also provided singing and speaking voices along with lyrics for Disney's Lady and the Tramp (1955) in the same year. But music was her first love and she continued on the road, crossing over occasionally from the easy jazz to pop field with such monster hits as "Fever" in 1958 and the Grammy-winning "Is That All There Is?" in 1969. In 1983, she went to Broadway in an autobiographical production called "Peg". It was one of the few projects in her life that was not a success.

Her later years were dogged by ill health and lawsuits, winning $2.3 million in 1991 against Disney to recoup royalties from videocassette sales of "Lady and the Tramp" and, just a week before her death, earning a preliminary approval of $4.75 million in a class lawsuit (she was the lead plaintiff of a group of Decca recording artists) for royalties against Universal Music Group. Semi-confined to a wheelchair since the 80s due to circulation problems and accidental falls, she valiantly continued performing until suffering a stroke in 1998. She died of a heart attack three years later. "Miss Peggy Lee", as she was always introduced, was a class act all the way and, in talent, is often deemed a smooth, self-contained combination of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday . - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net Spouse (4) Trivia (27) Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1987.

Gave birth to her only child at age 23, a daughter Nicki Lee Foster on November 11, 1943. Child's father was her 1st ex-husband, Dave Barbour . A diabetic, Lee was often troubled by weight and glandular problems. In 1961, she was felled by double pneumonia and in 1976, she had a near-fatal fall in a New York hotel. She was again seriously injured in another fall in Las Vegas in 1987. In early 1985, she underwent four angioplasties - balloon surgery to open clogged arteries - and resumed her singing tour. While appearing in New Orleans in October 1985, she underwent double-bypass heart surgery. In 1998, she suffered a stroke which impaired her speech, requiring therapy to recover. Her work on the Disney film Lady and the Tramp (1955) led to a landmark legal judgment 36 years later when a California court awarded her $2.3 million after she sued for a portion of the profits from the videocassette sale of the movie.

The case hinged on a clause in her pre-video-era contract barring the sale of "transcriptions" of the movie without her approval. She decided to become a singer at age 14, when she earned 50 cents a night at gigs for local PTAs. A few years later, she traveled to Fargo where she sang on a local radio station. The WDAY program director suggested a name change, and she became Peggy Lee. Has a rose named after her. The "Peggy Lee" rose is pink with a touch of peach. Voiced four different characters in Lady and the Tramp (1955): Darling, Peg, and both the Siamese cats. In addition to her accomplishments as a singer, she was a very fine songwriter, with several hit songs to her credit, many of them written in collaboration with her first husband, Dave Barbour .

Her songwriting credits include: "It's a Good Day", "Manana", "I Don't Know Enough About You" (all with Barbour), "Bella Notte", "Peace on Earth" (both with Sonny Burke ), "Don't Forget to Feed the Reindeer" and "So, What's New?" (with John Pisano and Ervin "Bud" Coleman). Ranked #93 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock N Roll At the time of her death, she was leading a potentially groundbreaking class-action lawsuit vs. Universal Music, a unit of Vivendi Universal. In early January 2002, the music giant agreed to pay $4.75 million in back royalties to as many as 300 performers to settle the suit. She had pneumonia when she gave birth to her daughter and almost died. She became engaged to her ex-husband David Barbour, who divorced her because he felt his drinking was not good for his daughter, four days before he died. He claimed he had been sober thirteen years by then and was ready to remarry her.

Is portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow in Infamous (2006) The original line-up on her 1958 smash hit "Fever" comprised: Jack Mondragon (double bass), Shelly Manne (drums) and Howard A. Roberts (electric guitar). It was Peggy Lee 's idea to eliminate Roberts' guitar, entirely, and have him provide the funky finger-snapping instead. Manne used his hands and fingers (rather than drumsticks) to tap his snare drum and tom-tom to the accompaniment of his bass drum. Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992 and the American Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999. Peggy Lee's final words, "Virgina doesn't come in till Tuesday." Virgina Bernard was her maid for many years. Is the namesake of the "Margarita" cocktail. In 1948 Santos Cruz, a bartender at the famed Texas nightclub the Balinese Room, mixed up a new drink especially for her. He named it for the Spanish version of "Margaret" which is the formal version of "Peggy".

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6319 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. Recipient of the North Dakota Roughrider Award. Ana Gasteyer paid homage to Lee in an April 2013 TV advertisement for Weight Watchers by paroding both her appearance and signature tune, "Fever". Sang the Lord's Prayer at the funeral of Louis Armstrong . She was a staunch Republican who gave much of her time and money towards various conservative political causes. She attended several Republican National Conventions, galas and fundraisers, and was active in the campaigns of Wendell Willkie , Thomas E. Dewey , Dwight D. Eisenhower , Richard Nixon , Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush . Peggy Lee passed away on January 21, 2002, four months away from what would have been her 82nd birthday on May 26. Following her death, she was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Became a grandmother for the 3rd time at age 48 when her daughter Nicki Lee Foster gave birth to her son, Michael J.

Foster, on June 2, 1968. Became a grandmother for the 2nd time at age 47 when her daughter Nicki Lee Foster gave birth to her daughter, Holly E. Foster ( Holly Foster Wells ), on June 21, 1967. Became a grandmother for the 1st time at age 44 when her daughter Nicki Lee Foster gave birth to her son, David A. Foster, on October 1, 1964. Personal Quotes (4) I loved acting, but my agents never brought me scripts. I was worth a lot more to them on the road. On her animated doggie character Peg in Lady and the Tramp (1955): Mamie Eisenhower was our First Lady at the time, and she always wore bangs. The little dog has bangs and her name in the script was Mamie, so Walt [Disney] was afraid someone might think we were being a little less than polite about the First Lady. That's why I have the honor of having the character named after me. I sang before I could talk. On personal power: Some of us just go along...

until that marvelous day people stop intimidating us -- or should I say we refuse to let them intimidate us? See also Peggy Lee - IMDb IMDb Soundtrack | Actress | Music Department Peggy Lee was Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, on May 26, 1920. At age four her mother died. Peggy's father, a railroad station agent, remarried but later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her. Peggy later memorialized this in the calypso number "One Beating a Day", one of 22 ... See full bio » Born: a list of 100 people created 28 Nov 2012 a list of 38 people created 13 Jan 2014 a list of 27 people created 26 Jan 2014 a list of 1281 people created 07 Sep 2014 a list of 40 people created 26 May 2015 Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Peggy Lee's work have you seen?

User Polls Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 1 nomination. See more awards » Known For 2016 Good Girls Revolt (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes) - The Year-Ender (2016) ... (performer: "Is That All There Is" - uncredited) - The Futures (2016) ... (performer: "I Enjoy Being A Girl" - uncredited) 2016 Pete's Dragon (performer: "It's A Good Day") / (writer: "It's A Good Day") - Christmas Trifle (2015) ... (performer: "Winter Wonderland") 2015 Stalker (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Love Hurts (2015) ... (performer: "It's a Wonderful World" - uncredited) 2015 The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode) - Julia Louis-Dreyfus/Scott Eastwood/Flo Rida (2015) ...

(writer: "Bella Notte (This Is the Night)" - uncredited) 2012-2015 Mad Men (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes) - Severance (2015) ... (performer: "Is That All There Is?" - uncredited) - Christmas Waltz (2012) ... (performer: "Christmas Waltz" - uncredited) 2015 Agent Carter (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Valediction (2015) ... (performer: "I Got it Bad (And that Ain't Good)" (uncredited), "I Got It Bad (and That Ain't Good)") - Episode #4.4 (2015) ...

(performer: "Fever" - uncredited) 2014/I Swing (performer: "It's a Good Day") / (writer: "It's a Good Day") 2014 Love, Rosie (performer: "I'm Confessin (That I Love You)") Helix (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 2014) (writer - 1 episode, 2014) - Survivor Zero (2014) ... (performer: "Fever") / (writer: "Fever") 2013 The Great Train Robbery (TV Mini-Series) (writer - 1 episode) - A Robber's Tale (2013) ... (writer: "Who's Gonna Pay The Check") 2011-2013 Glee (TV Series) (writer - 2 episodes) - Shooting Star (2013) ... (writer: "Bella Notte" - uncredited) - New York (2011) ...

(writer: "Bella Notte" - uncredited) 2013 Red Obsession (Documentary) (performer: "Fever") 2013 Gangster Squad (performer: "Bless You (For the Good That's in You)") / (writer: "Bless You (For the Good That's in You)") 2012/I Gambit (performer: "Once (IIs S'Aimaient)") 2005-2012 Weeds (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes) - Top 10 Performance (2011) ... (performer: "Fever") 2011 Queens of Pop (TV Series documentary) (lyrics - 1 episode) - Madonna (2011) ... (lyrics: "Fever") 2011 Timeshift (TV Series documentary) (performer - 1 episode) - Hotel DeLuxe (2011) ...

(performer: "Is That All There Is" - uncredited) 2011 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode) - Episode #19.156 (2011) ... (writer: "Bella Notte" - uncredited) 2011 L.A. Noire (Video Game) (performer: "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)") 2011 The Future (performer: "Where or When") 2010 Call Me Fitz (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode) - Loco (2010) ...

(writer: "I Don't Know Enough About You") 2010 Mafia II (Video Game) (performer: "HAPPINESS IS A THING CALLED JOE", "WHY DON'T YOU DO RIGHT (GET ME SOME MONEY TOO)") 2010 Disney Sing It: Family Hits (Video Game) (writer: "He's A Tramp") 2010 The Runaways (lyrics: "Fever") / (performer: "Fever") Doctors (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 2009) (writer - 1 episode, 2009) - O Christmas Tree (2009) ... (performer: "It's Christmas Time Again" - uncredited) / (writer: "It's Christmas Time Again" - uncredited) 2009 Change Nothing (Documentary) (writer: "Johnny Guitar") - Chuck Versus the Suburbs (2009) ...

(performer: "Fever" - uncredited) 2009/I World's Greatest Dad (performer: "It's a Good Day") / (writer: "It's a Good Day") 2008 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (performer: "Manana (Is Soon Enough For Me)") / (writer: "Manana (Is Soon Enough For Me)") Sex: The Revolution (TV Mini-Series documentary) (lyrics - 1 episode, 2008) (performer - 1 episode, 2008) - Tainted Love (2008) ... (lyrics: "Fever" - uncredited) / (performer: "Fever" - uncredited) 2008 The Cleaner (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Pilot (2008) ... (performer: "Passenger Fever Peggy Lee vs.

Iggy Pop" - uncredited) 2008 Of Time and the City (Documentary) (performer: "The Folks Who Live on the Hill") 2008 Pretextos (performer: "Johnny Guitar") / (writer: "Johnny Guitar") 2007 Bones (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) 2005 King Kong (performer: "Bye Bye Blackbird") 2005 Las Vegas (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) 2005 AMV Hell 3: The Motion Picture (performer: "We Are Siamese") 2005 The Notorious Bettie Page (performer: "Goody Goody", "It's a Good Day") / (writer: "It's a Good Day") 2005 Mad Hot Ballroom (Documentary) ("FEVER") 2004/I Floating (Short) (performer: "I Love Being Here With You") / (writer: "I Love Being Here With You") 2004 Exorcist: The Beginning (performer: "We'll Meet Again") Six Feet Under (

TV Series) (1 episode, 2001) (performer - 6 episodes, 2001 - 2004) (writer - 2 episodes, 2001 - 2004) - Grinding the Corn (2004) ...

(performer: "Take a Little Time to Smile" - uncredited) / (writer: "Take a Little Time to Smile" - uncredited) - Perfect Circles (2003) ... (performer: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town") - In the Game (2002) ... (performer: "I Love Being Here with You") 2004 Look at Me ("It's a good day") 2003 The O.C. (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - The Best Chrismukkah Ever (2003) ... (performer: "Winter Wonderland") 2003 Anything Else (writer: "There'll Be Another Spring") 2003 Soldier's Girl (TV Movie) (performer: "Fever") 2003 Mwah!

The Best of the Dinah Shore Show (TV Movie documentary) (performer: "I Got Rhythm") / (writer: "It's a Good Day") 2002 Sinatra: The Classic Duets (TV Movie documentary) (performer: "Nice Work If You Can Get It" - uncredited) 2001 Dean Martin: That's Amore (TV Movie) (performer: "I Love Being Here with You", "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)", "It's a Good Day") / (writer: "I Love Being Here with You", "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)", "It's a Good Day") 2001 Corky Romano (performer: "Fever") 2001 Night Visions (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Mickey's Happy Valentine Special (1989) ...

(writer: "Bella Notte" from tt0048280) 1988 Gorillas in the Mist (performer: "September in the Rain", "It's A Good Day", "Sugar") / (writer: "It's A Good Day") 1988 Monkey Shines (performer: "There'll Be Another Spring", "Ain't We Got Fun", "That's All", "The Glory of Love") / (writer: "There'll Be Another Spring") 1988 Disney Sing-Along-Songs: You Can Fly (Video short) (lyrics: "He's a Tramp") / (music: "He's a Tramp") 1987 Disney Sing-Along-Songs: Heigh-Ho (Video short) (lyrics: "The Siamese Cat Song") / (music: "The Siamese Cat Song") 1987 DTV 'Doggone' Valentine (TV Movie) (performer: "We Are Siamese" (aka "The Siamese Cat Song")) / (writer: "We Are Siamese" (aka "The Siamese Cat Song")) 198

6 DTV Valentine (TV Movie) (writer: "Bella Notte") 1985 After Hours (performer: "Is That All There Is?") 1984 Chinese Boxes (performer: "Is That All There Is ?") The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (TV Series) (performer - 8 episodes, 1974 - 1984) (writer - 2 episodes, 1978 - 1984) (lyrics - 1 episode, 1974) - Episode dated 25 June 1984 (1984) ...

(performer: "I Love Being Here with You", "I Got it Bad (And That Ain't Good)") / (writer: "I Love Being Here with You") 1970 The Johnny Cash Show (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #2.5 (1970) ... (performer: "For the Good Times") 1970 Pieces of Dreams (performer: "Pieces of Dreams" - as Miss Peggy Lee) / (performer: "The Pied Piper" - uncredited) 1970 The Best on Record (TV Special) (performer: "Is That All There Is?") The Dean Martin Show (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes, 1967 - 1969) (writer - 1 episode, 1970) - Episode #5.19 (1970) ... (writer: "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" - uncredited) - Episode #5.9 (1969) ...

(performer: "Is That All There Is?", "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", "I Got Rhythm", "Beer Barrel Polka" - uncredited) - Episode #2.25 (1967) ... (performer: "Walking Happy", "Little Girl Blue", "Just You, Just Me", "Exactly Like You", "For You", "The Very Thought of You", "You're Driving Me Crazy (What Did I Do?)", "Then I'll Be Happy", "Annie Doesn't Live Here Anymore", "Three Little Fishes" - uncredited) 1968 The Jonathan Winters Show (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #1.15 (1968) ... (performer: "The Lonesome Road", "The More I See You" - uncredited) 1962-1967 The Ed Sullivan Show (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes) - Episode #21.4 (1967) ...

(performer: "I Feel It", "The More I See You", "Just One of Those Things", "Why Don't You Do Right?", "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", "Falling Leaves", "Milord" - uncredited) - Episode #16.6 (1962) ... (performer: "Mountain Greenery", "Manhattan", "It Might As Well Be Spring") The Danny Kaye Show (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 1966) (writer - 1 episode, 1966) - Episode #4.14 (1966) ... (performer: "So What's New?", "Here's That Rainy Day", "Jingle Bells", "Jingle Journey" - uncredited) / (writer: "So What's New?" - uncredited) 1966 Walk Don't Run (writer: "Happy Feet", "Stay With Me") 1966 The Hollywood Palace (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode) - Episode #3.33 (1966) ...

(writer: "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" - uncredited) 1964 Joy House (writer: "Theme From Joy House (Just Call Me Love Bird)") - Happy with the Blues (1961) ... (writer: "Happy with the Blues") Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes, 1958 - 1960) (writer - 1 episode, 1958) - Episode #13.11 (1960) ... (performer: "I'm Sorry" (umcredited), "Gonna Get Along Without You Now" (uncredited)) - Episode #10.19 (1958) ...

(performer: "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street", "Jump for Joy", "A Shine on Your Shoes", "Get Out Those Old Records", "Golden Earrings", "Taking a Chance on Love", "April Love", "When You Were Sweet Sixteen", "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)", "It Ain't Necessarily So", "'A' - You're Adorable", "Lover", "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" - uncredited) / (writer: "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" - uncredited) 1958-1960 Make Room for Daddy (TV Series) (writer - 2 episodes) - Linda, the Performer (1960) ... (writer: "This Is A Very Special Day" - uncredited) - Rusty, the Ward-Heeler (1958) ... (writer: "This Is A Very Special Day" - uncredited) 1960 The Revlon Revue (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - A 70th Birthday Salute to Paul Whiteman (1960) ...

(performer: "Rockin' Chair", "The Gypsy in My Soul", "Georgia on My Mind", "It's So Peaceful in the Country", "Hold On", "Jeepers Creepers", "Them There Eyes", "Christmas Night in Harlem" - uncredited) 1958 Tom Thumb (lyrics: "tom thumb's Tune", "Are You a Dream" - uncredited) / (music: "tom thumb's Tune", "Are You a Dream" - uncredited) 1957 The Frank Sinatra Show (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes) - Peggy Lee (1957) ... (performer: "Our Love Is Here to Stay", "Nice Work If You Can Get It") 1957 The Lux Show (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode) - Episode #1.6 (1957) ... (writer: "It's a Good Day" - uncredited) The Nat King Cole Show (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 1957) (writer - 1 episode, 1957) - Episode #2.9 (1957) ...

(performer: "I Took One Look at You", "Don't Get Around Much Any More", "Makin' Whoopee" - uncredited) / (writer: "It's a Good Day") 1955 The Rawhide Years (lyrics: "The Gypsy with the Fire in His Shoes") 1955 Producers' Showcase (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Dateline II (1955) ...

(performer: "You're My Thrill", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "How About You?") 1955 Pete Kelly's Blues (performer: "Sugar (That Sugar Baby of Mine)" (uncredited), "Somebody Loves Me" (uncredited), "He Needs Me", "Sing a Rainbow") 1955 Lady and the Tramp (performer: "He's a Tramp", "La La Lu", "The Siamese Cat Song" - uncredited) / (writer: "He's a Tramp", "La La Lu", "The Siamese Cat Song", "Bella Notte (This Is the Night)", "Peace on Earth", "What Is a Baby?" - uncredited) 1955 The Racers (performer: "I Belong To You") 1954 About Mrs.

Leslie (writer: "I Love You So" - uncredited) 1954 Johnny Guitar ("Johnny Guitar") / (performer: "Johnny Guitar") 1953 The 25th Annual Academy Awards (TV Special) (performer: "Zing a Little Zong") 1952 The Jazz Singer (performer: "Just One of Those Things") / (writer: "This Is a Very Special Day") 1952 The Colgate Comedy Hour (TV Series) (writer - 2 episodes) - Abbott & Costello (1952) ... (writer: "It's a Good Day") - Episode #2.23 (1952) ... (writer: "It's a Good Day" - uncredited) 1951-1952 The Paul Whiteman's Goodyear Revue (TV Series) (performer - 2 episodes) - Episode #3.25 (1952) ... (performer: "I'll Be Seeing You", "The Lady Is a Tramp") - Episode #3.12 (1951) ...

(performer: "Little David Play On Your Harp", "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart") 1951 Bullfighter and the Lady (writer: "How Strange") The Frank Sinatra Show (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode, 1951) (writer - 1 episode, 1951) - Episode #1.26 (1951) ... (performer: "Rock Me to Sleep", "Manana") / (writer: "Manana") 1950 Mr.

Music (performer: "Life Is So Peculiar") 1947 Midnight Serenade (Short) (performer: "It's A Good Day", "You Was Right Baby", "Sugar", "I'm in the Mood For Love") / (writer: "It's A Good Day", "You Was Right Baby") 1947 For Sentimental Reasons (Short) (writer: "It's a Good Day") 1946 Jasper in a Jam (Short) (performer: "Old Man Mose is Dead", "Cherokee") PeggyLee.com - Biography - Current Biography Current Biography Author unknown; March 1963 Lee, Peggy ï¿½ May 26, 1920. Singer, actress, songwriter. More than two decades have passed since Peggy Lee sang with Benny Goodmanï¿½s swing band and made her first hit recording. Yet so inexhaustible is her talent and so intense her application to her work that, almost a generation later, she stands at the peak of her career.

A product of the big-band era, she derived from that apprenticeship her ability to sing anything from jazz to blues, to sing it with a beat, and with enough volume to be heard above the band. Few vocalists have had her staying power. Peggy Lee is also a successful composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, and businesswoman. To all her careers she brings a perfectionism that leaves the stamp of professionalism on everything she touches. Of Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, a farm town on the Great Plains, on May 26, 1920. She was the seventh of eight children born to Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad, and Mrs. Egstrom, who died when the child was four years old. Encouraged by the recognition she had received for her singing with the high school glee club, the church choir, and semi-professional college bands, Norma headed for Hollywood after she graduated from high school in 1938. With her she took $18 in cash and a railroad pass she had borrowed from her father.

Although she got a brief singing engagement at the Jade Room, a supper club on Hollywood Boulevard, she made little impression on the film capital, and she was reduced to working as a waitress and as a carnival spieler at a Balboa midway. Deciding to try her luck nearer home, she found work as a singer over radio station WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, whose manager, Ken Kennedy, christened her Peggy Lee. (To supplement her income she worked for a time as a bread slicer in a Fargo bakery.) Her prospects for a career brightened when she moved to Minneapolis, where she sang in the dining room of the Radisson Hotel, appeared on a Standard Oil radio show, and sang with Sev Olsenï¿½s band. Miss Lee broke into the big time when she became a vocalist with Will Osborneï¿½s band, but three months after she joined the group it broke up in St. Louis, and she got a ride to California with the manager. It was at the Doll House in Palm Springs, California that Peggy Lee first developed the soft and "cool" style that has become her trademark. Unable to shout above the clamor of the Doll House audience, Miss Lee tried to snare its attention by lowering her voice.

The softer she sang the quieter the audience became. She has never forgotten the secret, and it has given her style its distinctive combination of the delicate and the driving, the husky and the purringly seductive. One of the members of the Doll House audience was Frank Bering, the owner of Chicagoï¿½s Ambassador West Hotel, who invited her to sing in his establishmentï¿½s Buttery Room. Benny Goodman discovered Peggy Leeï¿½s vocalizing in the Buttery Room at a time when he was looking for a replacement for Helen Forrest. Miss Lee joined Goodmanï¿½s band in July, 1941, when the band was at the height of its popularity, and for over two years she toured the United States with the most famous swing outfit of the day, playing hotel engagements, college proms, theater dates, and radio programs. Much of her present success Miss Lee credits to her apprenticeship with the big bands. "I learned more about music from the men I worked with in bands than Iï¿½ve learned anywhere else," she has said. "They taught me discipline and the value of rehearsing and even how to trainï¿½. Band singing taught us the importance of interplay with musicians.

And we had to work close to the arrangement." In July, 1942, Peggy Lee recorded her first smash hit, "Why Donï¿½t You Do Right?" It sold over 1,000,000 copies and made her famous. In March, 1943, Peggy Lee married Dave Barbour, the guitarist in Goodmanï¿½s band; shortly thereafter she left the band. After her daughter, Nicki, was born in 1944, Peggy Lee and her husband worked successfully on the West Coast. In 1944 she began to record for Capitol Records, for whom she has produced a long string of hits ï¿½ many of them with lyrics and music by Miss Lee and Dave Barbour.

Among them are "Golden Earrings," which sold over 1,000,000 copies [sic; song not written by Lee and Barbour]; "You Was Right, Baby;" "Itï¿½s a Good Day;" "Maï¿½ana" (which sold over 2,000,000 records); "What More Can a Woman Do?;" and "I Donï¿½t Know Enough About You." Today Peggy Lee has a top rating as a songwriter with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 1950 Peggy Lee made a first, brief screen appearance [sic; she had previously appeared in "Stage Door Canteen," "The Powers Girl" and several shorts] in Paramountï¿½s "Mr. Music," starring Bing Crosby.

In 1953 she played a featured role opposite Danny Thomas in Warner Brothersï¿½ remake of the early Al Jolson talking picture, "The Jazz Singer," and won praise from a critic of the "New York Wolrd-Telegram and Sun" for "a very promising start on a movie career" as "a poised and ingratiating ingenue." Her performance as a despondent and alcoholic blues singer in "Pete Kellyï¿½s Blues" (Warner Brothers, 1955) won her a nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the 1955 balloting conducted by the Council of Motion Picture Organizations, moviegoers voted her the "Audie" statuette. Peggy Lee has not only appeared in motion pictures but she has also written music and lyrics for them. She wrote the theme music for "Johnny Guitar" (Republic, 1954) and for "About Mrs. Leslie" (Paramount, 1954).

She contributed the musical score to two George Pal cartoon features, "Tom Thumb" (MGM, 1958) and "The Time Machine" (MGM, 1960), and wrote the lyrics and supplied several voices for the Walt Disney full-length animated cartoon "Lady and the Tramp" (Buena Vista, 1955). For "Anatomy of a Murder" (Columbia, 1959) she wrote the lyrics for "Iï¿½m Gonna Go Fishinï¿½" to music by Duke Ellington. In the respect she commands from the critics both as a popular vocalist and as a jazz artist, Peggy Lee is a rarity among singers.

Critic George Hoefer of "Downbeat" magazine has called her "the greatest white female jazz singer since Mildred Bailey," and Leonard Feather in "The Encyclopedia of Jazz" (Horizon, 1960) has described her as "one of the most sensitive and jazz-oriented singers in the pop field." Miss Lee won the 1946 polls as best female vocalist of both "Metronome" and "Downbeat" magazines, wisely read by jazz buffs, and the 1950 citation as "the nationï¿½s most popular female vocalist" from "Billboard," a trade magazine of show business. A frequent performer on television, she sang on the Thursday night "Revlon Revues" over CBS-TV in 1960, and has appeared on televised musical variety shows starring Perry Como, George Gobel, Steve Allen and Bing Crosby. In March, 1960 she undertook a straight dramatic role in "So Deadly, So Evil" on the "General Electric Theater" over CBS-TV.

In September, 1962 Miss Lee reached what she has called the "high spot" in her career when she was selected to appear in Philharmonic Hall of New Yorkï¿½s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, an auditorium usually available to those whom the management considers as serious artists. Miss Lee conducted research for, and wrote a program called "The Jazz Tree," tracing the origins and development of jazz as a native American art form. Originally scheduled for December, 1962, the booking was postponed until March, 1963 to give Miss Lee enough time to perfect her presentation. This perfectionist approach to her programs is typical of Miss Lee. She polishes and perfects every aspect of her performances ï¿½ her special coiffures, her costly wardrobe, her lighting, her entrances and exits, and her musical arrangements. Her perfectionism may derive from her association with Benny Goodman, who always demanded the best from his performers. Rejecting the improvisatory approach of most jazz singers, Peggy Lee plans every detail of her delivery in advance, including even the movement of her hands.

This perfectionism has taken its toll of her health on several occasions; she was hospitalized with virus pneumonia in July, 1958 and in November, 1961. As a result, Miss Lee has reduced her schedule, confining her public appearances to six weeks each year in New York and Las Vegas, a few television shows, and one or two charity benefits. Although Miss Lee continues to collaborate with Dave Barbour on words and music, their marriage ended in divorce in 1951. On January 4, 1955, Miss Lee married Brad Dexter, a movie actor. Ten months later they were divorced. Miss Leeï¿½s third marriage, to actor Dewey Martin on April 25, 1956, also ended in divorce in 1959. [A fourth marriage, 1964-1965, was to percussionist and bandleader Jack Del Rio.] She is 5ï¿½7" in height, with hazel eyes and champagne-blonde hair. With her daughter, Nicki, she lives in Coldwater Canyon, near Hollywood, California.

It contains not only a soundproof studio with tape units, microphones, grand piano, and other equipment for writing and recording music, but also an artistï¿½s studio in which she paints and sculpts the hands of musicians and the heads of great men like Albert Schweitzer whom she admires. A book of her verse, "Softly, With Feeling," was published in 1953. In 1958 Miss Lee consolidated her various activities, which include music publishing firms and a production unit for television and films, into a company called Peggy Lee enterprises. Noted for her generosity, she has been active in such philanthropies as CARE and WAIF, and in November, 1962 was appointed national chairman of the Tom Dooley Foundation. In spite of her many commitments, Peggy Lee makes a point of finding enough time for reading, especially the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson who, she feels, has a special significance for Americans today.

"I wouldnï¿½t still be working today if it werenï¿½t for the strength Iï¿½ve derived from some of his essays," she once told Neil Hickey in an interview for "American Weekly" (July 3, 1960). "He said: ï¿½God will not have his work done by cowards.ï¿½ To me that means: ï¿½Donï¿½t let your personal problems get in the way of your lifeï¿½s work.ï¿½ Iï¿½ve had to remember that rule several times during my career. Peggy Lee on Apple Music To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music. Biography Peggy Lee's alluring tone, distinctive delivery, breadth of material, and ability to write many of her own songs made her one of the most captivating artists of the vocal era, from her breakthrough on the Benny Goodman hit "Why Don't You Do Right" to her many solo successes, singles including "Mañana," "Lover" and "Fever" that showed her bewitching vocal power, a balance between sultry swing and impeccable musicianship.

Born Norma Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, she suffered the death of her mother at the age of four and endured a difficult stepmother after her father remarried. Given her sense of swing by listening to Count Basie on the radio, she taught herself to sing and made her radio debut at the age of 14. She made the jump to Fargo (where she was christened Peggy Lee), then to Minneapolis and St. Louis to sing with a regional band. Lee twice journeyed to Hollywood to make her fortune, but returned unsuccessful from both trips. She finally got her big break in 1941, when a vocal group she worked with began appearing at a club in Chicago. While there, she was heard by Benny Goodman, whose regular vocalist Helen Forrest was about to leave his band. Lee recorded with Goodman just a few days later, debuting with the popular "Elmer's Tune" despite a good deal of nerves.

That same year, several songs became commercial successes including "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" and "Winter Weather." In 1943, "Why Don't You Do Right" became her first major hit, but she left the Goodman band (and the music industry altogether) later that year after marrying Goodman's guitarist, Dave Barbour. After just over a year of domestic life, Peggy Lee returned to music, first as part of an all-star jazz album. Then, in late 1945, Capitol signed her to a solo contract and she hit the charts with her first shot, "Waitin' for the Train to Come In." Lee continued to score during the late '40s, with over two dozen chart entries before the end of the decade, including "It's a Good Day," "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" -- the most popular song of 1948 -- and "I Don't Know Enough About You." Many of her singles were done in conjunction with Barbour, her frequent writing and recording partner.

After moving to Decca in 1952, Peggy Lee scored with the single "Lover" and an LP, Songs From Pete Kelly's Blues recorded with Ella Fitzgerald (both singers also made appearances in the film). She spent only five years at Decca however, before moving back to Capitol. There, she distinguished herself through recording a wide variety of material, including songs -- and occasionally, entire LPs -- influenced by the blues, Latin and cabaret as well as pop. Lee also used many different settings, like an orchestra conducted by none other than Frank Sinatra for 1957's The Man I Love, the George Shearing Quintet for 1959's live appearance Beauty and the Beat, Quincey Jones as arranger and conductor for 1961's If You Go, and arrangements by Benny Carter on 1963's Mink Jazz. Barbour's problems with alcoholism ended their marriage, though they remained good friends until his death in 1965. Peggy Lee was an early advocate of rock and made a quick transition into rock-oriented material.

Given her depth and open mind for great songs no matter the source, it wasn't much of a surprise that she sounded quite comfortable covering the more song-oriented end of late-'60s rock, including great choices by Jimmy Webb, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Burt Bacharach, Randy Newman, Goffin & King and John Sebastian. She nearly brushed the Top Ten in 1969 with Leiber & Stoller's "Is That All There Is?" She continued recording contemporary material until 1972's Norma Deloris Egstrom From Jamestown, North Dakota brought her back to her roots. It was her last LP for Capitol, however. Lee recorded single LPs for Atlantic, A&M, Polydor UK and DRG before effectively retiring at the beginning of the 1980s. She returned in 1988 with two LPs for Music Masters that revisited her earlier successes. Her last album, Moments Like This, was recorded in 1992 for Chesky. Her voice was effectively silenced after a 1998 stroke, and she died of a heart attack at her Bel Air home in early 2002.

~ John Bush Top Albums Peggy Lee | Current Biography Current Biography You are here: Home » All About Peggy » Biography » Current Biography Author unknown; March 1963 Lee, Peggy – May 26, 1920. Singer, actress, songwriter. More than two decades have passed since Peggy Lee sang with Benny Goodman’s swing band and made her first hit recording. Yet so inexhaustible is her talent and so intense her application to her work that, almost a generation later, she stands at the peak of her career. A product of the big-band era, she derived from that apprenticeship her ability to sing anything from jazz to blues, to sing it with a beat, and with enough volume to be heard above the band. Few vocalists have had her staying power. Peggy Lee is also a successful composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, and businesswoman. To all her careers she brings a perfectionism that leaves the stamp of professionalism on everything she touches. Of Norwegian and Swedish ancestry, Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, a farm town on the Great Plains, on May 26, 1920.

She was the seventh of eight children born to Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad, and Mrs. Egstrom, who died when the child was four years old. Encouraged by the recognition she had received for her singing with the high school glee club, the church choir, and semi-professional college bands, Norma headed for Hollywood after she graduated from high school in 1938. With her she took $18 in cash and a railroad pass she had borrowed from her father. Although she got a brief singing engagement at the Jade Room, a supper club on Hollywood Boulevard, she made little impression on the film capital, and she was reduced to working as a waitress and as a carnival spieler at a Balboa midway. Deciding to try her luck nearer home, she found work as a singer over radio station WDAY in Fargo, North Dakota, whose manager, Ken Kennedy, christened her Peggy Lee.

(To supplement her income she worked for a time as a bread slicer in a Fargo bakery.) Her prospects for a career brightened when she moved to Minneapolis, where she sang in the dining room of the Radisson Hotel, appeared on a Standard Oil radio show, and sang with Sev Olsen’s band. Miss Lee broke into the big time when she became a vocalist with Will Osborne’s band, but three months after she joined the group it broke up in St. Louis, and she got a ride to California with the manager. It was at the Doll House in Palm Springs, California that Peggy Lee first developed the soft and “cool” style that has become her trademark. Unable to shout above the clamor of the Doll House audience, Miss Lee tried to snare its attention by lowering her voice. The softer she sang the quieter the audience became. She has never forgotten the secret, and it has given her style its distinctive combination of the delicate and the driving, the husky and the purringly seductive. One of the members of the Doll House audience was Frank Bering, the owner of Chicago’s Ambassador West Hotel, who invited her to sing in his establishment’s Buttery Room.

Benny Goodman discovered Peggy Lee’s vocalizing in the Buttery Room at a time when he was looking for a replacement for Helen Forrest. Miss Lee joined Goodman’s band in July, 1941, when the band was at the height of its popularity, and for over two years she toured the United States with the most famous swing outfit of the day, playing hotel engagements, college proms, theater dates, and radio programs. Much of her present success Miss Lee credits to her apprenticeship with the big bands. “I learned more about music from the men I worked with in bands than I’ve learned anywhere else,” she has said. “They taught me discipline and the value of rehearsing and even how to train…. Band singing taught us the importance of interplay with musicians. And we had to work close to the arrangement.” In July, 1942, Peggy Lee recorded her first smash hit, “Why Don’t You Do Right?” It sold over 1,000,000 copies and made her famous. In March, 1943, Peggy Lee married Dave Barbour, the guitarist in Goodman’s band; shortly thereafter she left the band.

After her daughter, Nicki, was born in 1944, Peggy Lee and her husband worked successfully on the West Coast. In 1944 she began to record for Capitol Records, for whom she has produced a long string of hits – many of them with lyrics and music by Miss Lee and Dave Barbour. Among them are “Golden Earrings,” which sold over 1,000,000 copies [sic; song not written by Lee and Barbour]; “You Was Right, Baby;” “It’s a Good Day;” “Mañana” (which sold over 2,000,000 records); “What More Can a Woman Do?;” and “I Don’t Know Enough About You.” Today Peggy Lee has a top rating as a songwriter with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. In 1950 Peggy Lee made a first, brief screen appearance [sic; she had previously appeared in “Stage Door Canteen,” “The Powers Girl” and several shorts] in Paramount’s “Mr. Music,” starring Bing Crosby.

In 1953 she played a featured role opposite Danny Thomas in Warner Brothers’ remake of the early Al Jolson talking picture, “The Jazz Singer,” and won praise from a critic of the “New York Wolrd-Telegram and Sun” for “a very promising start on a movie career” as “a poised and ingratiating ingenue.” Her performance as a despondent and alcoholic blues singer in “Pete Kelly’s Blues” (Warner Brothers, 1955) won her a nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the 1955 balloting conducted by the Council of Motion Picture Organizations, moviegoers voted her the “Audie” statuette. Peggy Lee has not only appeared in motion pictures but she has also written music and lyrics for them. She wrote the theme music for “Johnny Guitar” (Republic, 1954) and for “About Mrs. Leslie” (Paramount, 1954).

She contributed the musical score to two George Pal cartoon features, “Tom Thumb” (MGM, 1958) and “The Time Machine” (MGM, 1960), and wrote the lyrics and supplied several voices for the Walt Disney full-length animated cartoon “Lady and the Tramp” (Buena Vista, 1955). For “Anatomy of a Murder” (Columbia, 1959) she wrote the lyrics for “I’m Gonna Go Fishin’” to music by Duke Ellington. In the respect she commands from the critics both as a popular vocalist and as a jazz artist, Peggy Lee is a rarity among singers.

Critic George Hoefer of “Downbeat” magazine has called her “the greatest white female jazz singer since Mildred Bailey,” and Leonard Feather in “The Encyclopedia of Jazz” (Horizon, 1960) has described her as “one of the most sensitive and jazz-oriented singers in the pop field.” Miss Lee won the 1946 polls as best female vocalist of both “Metronome” and “Downbeat” magazines, wisely read by jazz buffs, and the 1950 citation as “the nation’s most popular female vocalist” from “Billboard,” a trade magazine of show business. A frequent performer on television, she sang on the Thursday night “Revlon Revues” over CBS-TV in 1960, and has appeared on televised musical variety shows starring Perry Como, George Gobel, Steve Allen and Bing Crosby. In March, 1960 she undertook a straight dramatic role in “So Deadly, So Evil” on the “General Electric Theater” over CBS-TV.

In September, 1962 Miss Lee reached what she has called the “high spot” in her career when she was selected to appear in Philharmonic Hall of New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, an auditorium usually available to those whom the management considers as serious artists. Miss Lee conducted research for, and wrote a program called “The Jazz Tree,” tracing the origins and development of jazz as a native American art form. Originally scheduled for December, 1962, the booking was postponed until March, 1963 to give Miss Lee enough time to perfect her presentation. This perfectionist approach to her programs is typical of Miss Lee. She polishes and perfects every aspect of her performances – her special coiffures, her costly wardrobe, her lighting, her entrances and exits, and her musical arrangements. Her perfectionism may derive from her association with Benny Goodman, who always demanded the best from his performers. Rejecting the improvisatory approach of most jazz singers, Peggy Lee plans every detail of her delivery in advance, including even the movement of her hands.

This perfectionism has taken its toll of her health on several occasions; she was hospitalized with virus pneumonia in July, 1958 and in November, 1961. As a result, Miss Lee has reduced her schedule, confining her public appearances to six weeks each year in New York and Las Vegas, a few television shows, and one or two charity benefits.

Question: Which state was Peggy Lee born in?
Answer: North Dakota